Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Rahdulan]

Been playing Star Ocean (SNES 1996) seriously for the first time recently. I had tried it a couple of times in the past after the fan translation came out, but usually stopped after an hour or two. However, my love of classic Tri-Ace titles such as Star Ocean: Second Story and Valkyrie Profile made me decide to see it through to the end. What I found was an excellent - yet obviously flawed - JRPG experience taking many cues from western RPGs. Also one of the most aesthetically beautiful games I've played from the era.

While exploration and progression initially appears to be quite linear, it's quickly revealed to have a fair amount of flexibility and lack of hand-holding. With the ability to recruit a total of eight characters to your team per playthrough, and a total of 12 recruitable characters, each effecting a playthrough in unique ways, this game boasts one of the most impressive amount of replayability in a SNES era JRPG to date, besides the likes of Romancing SaGa. Add in the robust skill system that includes everything from abilities such as identify, painting, smithing, alchemy, and cooking, and you find something you've never really seen in an SNES era JRPG. These are all things that we saw in Second Story in a much more refined system, but what amazes me is that it came out when it did.

The battle system has a plethora of problems, such as lack of control of your entire party, inability to move your character on the battlefield independent of attack commands, and sometimes bafflingly foolish AI. Somehow it remains fun and contributes to the overall challenge of the experience.

The story is nothing to write home about, but the world itself and the unique scenario it presents keeps me entertained well enough. Being particularly invested in and seeing the origins of the characters Ronyx (Ronixis in the fan translation) and Iria - as they are the parents of Clyde from Second Story - is a treat.

Music is fantastic and one of Motoi Sakuraba's finest JRPG works.

Again, the game is flawed, but it's admirable to see the intentions of the Tri-Ace on their first independent foray. I'd like so share some screenshots of my playthrough and urge all of you to give the game a try if you're a fan of Tri-Ace games.

I always thought Star Ocean's biggest fault was how underutilized the whole "access to a starship" feature was, not to mention inherent downplaying of SF elements in favor of over-represented fantasy. It basically took the series until the third installment to properly tackle visiting other planets. Crafting systems alone are mindblowing considering they're an optional part of the game and you can tell Tri-Ace really wanted to give it their all even if not necessarily taking much thought into how it played with the entire package.

Not a fan of the PSP version despite it being the first official English release of the original, though. It seems too... sterile, I guess?

 

[CryptRat]

inherent downplaying of SF elements in favor of over-represented fantasy

Yes for all its flaws I liked that the fourth game was a 100% futuristic game unlike the previous ones. It's about the only good point of this one, those Starship Trooper-ish enemies are cool, although I guess if you don't mind arena real-time battles where you control only one character too much (this kind of combat system really does suck, right?) then the combat in those 3D Star Ocean is still better than the Tales Of one due to the arcadey experience bonus system.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Playing FF7 for the first time, so far FF9 was better.. .
Also I am bored. Apparently the game gets good once you leave midgar so there is that.

So far running around isn't fun, the backgrounds are really weird as in the camera placement feels off. Battle music is nice, midgar music not so much.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Playing FF7 for the first time, so far FF9 was better.. .
Also I am bored. Apparently the game gets good once you leave midgar so there is that.

So far running around isn't fun, the backgrounds are really weird as in the camera placement feels off. Battle music is nice, midgar music not so much.

FF VII becomes slightly less constricting once you leave Midgar, but the opening sections in Midgar are the best part of the game.

 

[Ysaye]

I've started Shining Resonance (Refrain) because I kind of wanted to see what Shining Force (which is one of my childhood favourites) had turned into; first thoughts:

(1) Boobs - so far the first two girls have kind of pushed their chests pressed into the front of the screen at every opportunity - also I was scrolling through my inventory and apparently I have a range of revealing costumes to put them into without even trying;
(2) It is about as pretty as Trails of Cold Steel but there are much fewer NPCs that speak to you, they have less to say;
(3) The gameplay is sort of real time but kind of not really? Having just come over from another round of Dark Souls, the controls feel very stiff (athough that could be point 1);
(4) The main character is a sad sac - he is a bit annoying TBH. Couldn't they have made him a mute character in age old JRPG fashion?; and
(5) Haven't played long but lots of players keep on having de-ja-vu - I presume there is going to be some kind of time-repetition thing later on.....

 

[Puukko]

I'm 20+ hours into Eternal Punishment and it does a few things to set it apart from Innocent Sin, mostly in good ways but not strictly so.

The game is indeed more difficult and consequently more enjoyable, but still not what I would call hard. I had to grind and get new Personas for one boss fight and random encounters hit considerably harder than the tickling that most enemies in IS did. I've actually invested in gear and there's a crafting system for when the standard stuff you get from stores isn't enough. You need to hit the slots to get the materials for it though, which I completely skipped in IS and haven't done so far in EP either. I only just discovered food buffs as well, which is fine since in IS I avoided leveling and excessive gearing to introduce some challenge into the game.

There's still a lack of Personas to the point where there's usually 1 or at most 2 at any given time that are worth pursuing for a character due to favorable affinities. Or, like with Katsuya, there's really no Personas that make good use of his high STR that are available to me at my current level. You really want a maximum affinity Persona since only they can mutate their skills, which means most characters have 2 Arcana to choose from, 1 of which is likely an Arcana that you can only get cards for via the use of the card painter when you have free cards from demons. All in all, it's a rather cumbersome way to attain new Personas from a very limited pool.

There is luckily a way to greatly strenghten Personas to give them longevity. Once at max rank (all skills learned), ending a fight with a fusion spell gives a decent chance for any fusion spell participant to have their Persona learn a hidden skill, evolve or gain stats. This is how Baofu's lvl 22 Hel has roughly the stats of a lvl 40 Persona when my dudes are lvl 30 and will only continue to gain stats since there doesn't seem to be a limit and the only thing that'll get me to eventually change will be better skills. This is how I made Baofu my strongest party member despite his weak stats (high crit, shit for everything else) since final stats are a mix of both.

The game reuses assets from IS including many of the locations, but there is a valid story reason for this. I wish I could replace Ulala with Yukki but unfortunately she is only a side character in this. I don't know how or when Tatsuya will join the party but I assume it'll be at the mid point at the earliest. Right now he's playing the role of the cool and mysterious deus ex machina who solves hopeless situations and then disappears.

Aesthetics wise the game beats the remakes in my opinion. I preferred the guitar shredding of the remixed soundtrack though, so far the music has been less memorable.

 

[Removal]

Finally sat down to get through FFVII after enjoying VI a lot
that said, I'm honestly not super impressed with it, but that may be that I never played it near release
It's a good game, but not what I expected.

While the prerendered backgrounds look great, the character models on them look a bit goofy, a clash of styles but I can live with it. Stuff like certain spells, actions, or summons locking into elaborate cut scenes to show off how cool the move is on the other hand drives me up the wall.
Weapons don't change stats anymore and are just tied to materia slots and materia growth which is disappointing
While materia is interesting as a system and fun to mess around with, it makes VI's problem of interchangeable characters worse. VI was able to partly cover this up with unique character abilities and denying espers/magic to everyone until a bit later in the game, but it was still there.

Onto IX and X after this

 

[Damned Registrations]

Finally sat down to get through FFVII after enjoying VI a lot
that said, I'm honestly not super impressed with it, but that may be that I never played it near release
It's a good game, but not what I expected.

While the prerendered backgrounds look great, the character models on them look a bit goofy, a clash of styles but I can live with it. Stuff like certain spells, actions, or summons locking into elaborate cut scenes to show off how cool the move is on the other hand drives me up the wall.
Weapons don't change stats anymore and are just tied to materia slots and materia growth which is disappointing
While materia is interesting as a system and fun to mess around with, it makes VI's problem of interchangeable characters worse. VI was able to partly cover this up with unique character abilities and denying espers/magic to everyone until a bit later in the game, but it was still there.

Onto IX and X after this

I just started it up myself, but modded the fuck out of it. Looks great, battles go by much faster (sped up animations) difficulty is actually there, characters have different stats and special traits... it's fucking awesome.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology. Can't think of a bad thing to say. The fights force you to use skills and combos, plot is interesting from the start, no one acts retarded, the MC is likable. Pretty damn good...but some character designs are pretty damn anime for those who care (Marco looks like an armored toddler). For anyone playing on an actual 3DS, the demo is several hours long since it includes all of chapter 1.



-

oh yeah, about Heiss and General Hugo

 

[Sigourn]

I've got around 35 hours in Dragon Quest V, if not more (I wouldn't be surprised), and this is what I have to say so far:

1. I think I'm nearing the end of the game. In other games you just know when the end is close because the story picks up speed at a dramatic pace, but in DQV, it's how the story is built that makes me think I'm nearing the end.
2. Unlike other games, however, I have no rush in finishing DQV. It's no Shin Megami Tensei, where the absurd amount and length of battles makes me want to end myself.
3. The battles aren't challenging at all. I've never had the need to grind and/or use many of the spells at my disposal. The positive thing is I never had to grind even when my team was underleveled because of new additions to the party, thanks to the "every member, in combat or not, receives the same amount of EXP", which is usually dropped in favor of "you must absolutely use these characters if you want to level them up quickly". I much prefer it this way since it prevents the game from padding itself out.
4. The music is nice, nothing mindblowing, but it does repeat itself fairly often.
5. The story illustrates the problem I have with pre-5th Gen JRPGs, and videogames in general: a film uses every bit of its power to make you feel for the characters, to the point many people have cried at the ending of Titanic over the course of "just" three hours. The Big Fish makes me cry after just two hours. But with these earlier games, the emotional stories don't strike me anywhere as much (or better said: don't strke me at all) because the presentation is lacking. Not because the devs are bad, but because the technology wasn't still there, and it's hard to genuinely care or feel what a handful of sprites are going through. The music repeating itself all the time doesn't help either (ironically, Titanic abuses its leit motif all the goddamn time... and it still works, for millions of people). With that said, it's a nice and unique story worth playing through, though the silent protagonist makes it hard to identify with him because it is me who is supposed to care about getting married in a 16-bit RPG, instead of the character that undergoes said marriage and stays mute the entire time.
6. The graphics are cute! And with the CRT filter I'm using, the colors aren't as vomit inducing.

After this game I will try DQIII (NES), and DQIV (NES). I'm thinking about skipping DQVI, if only because the translation isn't finished, polished (DQV's is fairly unpolished at times, but at least it is complete), and bug-free, and I think the DS remake looks like shit. Someday I would like to try the PS2 DQV remake, which has been fully translated.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

These are the same impressions I had when I played DQVII on the 3DS (emulated). It is basically the only DQ that I played consistently, about 80 h, but I didn't manage to complete it. The problem with JRPGs is that if you stop playing a game for whatever reason, it is very difficult to start again from the point you left it. Basically you need a kind of continuous "momentum" to push you through.

 

[Sigourn]

These are the same impressions I had when I played DQVII on the 3DS (emulated). It is basically the only DQ that I played consistently, about 80 h, but I didn't manage to complete it. The problem with JRPGs is that if you stop playing a game for whatever reason, it is very difficult to start again from the point you left it. Basically you need a kind of continuous "momentum" to push you through.

Yep. I've been playing the game on and off over the past three weeks, mostly because we were shooting a short film these past two weekends and I was too busy to play the game properly. And sometimes I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. Not in the sense of "where do I go from here?", but rather, "why am I DOING this?". At one point in the game, you have to retrieve two wedding rings. But when I picked the game back up, I kept thinking "why was it that my character engaged in a quest to retrieve these two rings?", aside from the obvious, short term goal that had nothing to do with "the main quest" even though this was just another step in the main quest.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Is there a reason you're going to play DQ3 on the NES rather than the SNES port? I think the SNES port is a vast improvement- and I say that despite DQ3 NES being the first RPG I ever played and one I hold in very high regard.

 

[Sigourn]

Is there a reason you're going to play DQ3 on the NES rather than the SNES port? I think the SNES port is a vast improvement- and I say that despite DQ3 NES being the first RPG I ever played and one I hold in very high regard.

Mostly because it is the original. Moreover, I want to play DQ4 afterwards and I don't think it would be nice to go from SNES to NES; I prefer to take the dip right now back to the NES and see the improvements DQ4 brought to the table, and let my current playthrough of DQ5 complete the picture. DQ1 I have already played (at least until the final dungeon, which is pure grind, not unlike the rest of the game), and I have heard DQ2 is pretty bad.

Some games in the spirit of Dragon Quest I would also like to try are the Glory of Heracles titles, which I've heard I should start with from the second one. Mostly because I want to see the Greek setting.

 

[Sigourn]

Oooooooookay. So, this major problem appeared right after

Spoiler

your children turn you from stone back to flesh

Basically, whereas DQV had been pretty logical about the things you were doing thus far, now it feels like Pirates of the Caribbean, where so much goes on in so little time I have no idea why am I supposed to be doing the things I'm doing, and as a consequence, I don't know what else am I supposed to do next, not to mention the why. Of course, the obvious answer is "just go on and talk to everyone and check everything", which does work, but it is lame to be doing that instead of knowing what you are supposed to be doing.

Spoiler

I was turned back into flesh. My good friend at my Kingdom told me to search for my mother's birthplace, which I did. After listening to some elders that had literally nothing useful to say, a man at the village gave me a magic key and a magic carpet. I think he told me I should ask the fairies for help or something... and so I went and found the Fairie village, which let me recover a Golden Orb I used to restore the Zenithian Castle back to the skies, which I don't know WHY I was supposed to do this... and now someone gave me a grappling hook in order to investigate the place the Demon Lord was held at, or something.

I don't know, it all feels too sloppy compared to everything that came before this. Still, I know where I'm supposed to be, though the monsters have gotten fairly strong. I suppose I'll look up a FAQ regarding these last story beats because Wikipedia has this nasty habit of summarizing everything to the extreme, where you go from "okay, this happened 20 hours before" to "okay, this spoiled the story" in just two sentences.

 

[Removal]

Rolling up to the end of FFX, while I really like the combat system, everything else ranges in the blah category
I'm very tired of linear corridors with small side passages with item chests at the end. Also cutscenes getting more and more common as the game moves forward to the point of dreading any area transition
I feel very mixed on this game

 

[Puukko]

Got back to VC4. Somewhere past the midway point as the ship has been out on the sea for quite some time. I'm still interested in seeing how the overarching story plays out, and what the deal with Kai actually is (supposed mindfuckery involved based on what I was told) but the story's gotten somewhat stale with it focusing on their internal conflicts and now they pulled the 'little girl with amnesia in the engine room' card and I just rolled my eyes. But you can skip most of that side plot it seems which I didn't have to think twice about doing. In contrast, everything that has to do with the Empire instantly catches my attention. I would really much rather be playing as them.

Gameplay wise the game really likes throwing a curveball at you with every mission having some twist to it and the objective often changing. I like it for the most part but I'd like to have the occasional predictable mission in there as well. And no random enemy spawns outside their camps, that's just stupid.

 

[Sigourn]

Well, that's Dragon Quest V done and over with. Beat the game and the optional Superboss, with no grinding at all (that is, purposely getting into encounters to raise your level). The two guides I found on GameFaqs suggested level 50, but I'm glad it didn't come to that as my party beat the monster with levels ranging anywhere between 15 (Heal Rex) and 43 (Hero). Short review coming in the future.

 

[Sigourn]

I'm not going to pretend I can write a review that is enjoyable to read, so I'll simple post my list of positives and negatives:

The good:

1. Next to no grinding required. You can beat this game just by exploring and the usual "I don't know what the fuck I should be doing" running around.
2. Good music. Really enjoyable.
3. Great graphics. To me these simple graphics are otherwise very charming. They have a distinctive style to them, which blends simplicity with attention to detail, that is just lovely.
4. Iconic sound design. Listen to the game as you play and you just know it is Dragon Quest.
5. The dungeon design makes most dungeons relatively unique. A lot of them have their own traits: sliding floors, holes to fall through, train carts to ride, and so on. Even caves look different from one another because of their non-linear layouts.
6. The game is challenging not so much because of the fights, but because you need to endure them and dungeons.

The bad:

1. Like I said earlier, fights aren't particularly challenging.
   
2. The spells aren't particularly useful either. Like I said, next to no grinding is required. Does that mean you are able to plow through battles thanks to your particularly smart use of spells and resources? Not at all. You don't need to grind because battles almost never grow demanding. This stops being true near the end of the game, where buff spells are very much a necessity if you want to stay alive. However, I can't judge how good the spell availability is when you only need it for less than 5% of the game.
3. The monster recruiting system adds replayability, but that's about it. I never found myself making use of all my recruited monsters. Which is a far cry from a game like Pokémon, where it is you who purposely sets out to catch Pokémon to use. Because in Dragon Quest V monsters step up to join you, the only reasonable answer is "Accept" and carry on.

Overall I'd say it's a 7/10. Hardly anything that was a genuine problem for me, but also hardly "GREAT". Even "very good" is stretching it. It's just good and enjoyable, can't really ask for more.

 

[Puukko]

Final mission of Valkyria Chronicles 4 underway. I think I've seen just about all twists the story has to offer so I'll more or less write down my final thoughts, mainly comparing the game to 1. Overall I'd say that this is more or less a perfect sequel in the sense that it improves upon practically everything over 1 while losing nothing - quite often with sequels like this the gameplay is improved while the story is worse, or at least seems worse while in reality people usually just prefer their first exposure to the series and are quick to gloss over minor faults. It's rather interesting that after the... shift in tone that happened with 2 and 3, they managed to go back to their roots a decade later and capture what was so good about the original.

4 adds a number of mechanical changes that bring variety to the gameplay while not making it cluttered and unfocused. The main addition is the mortar class which specializes in what you'd imagine a mortar would do. I remember reading that some thought this made lancers way less useful, but I don't really agree with that, I always still relied on lancers when tanks needed busting. Mortars have potentially very strong overwatch fire since they can fire from behind obstacles, which makes them very versatile but they can't just soak bullets like lancers can. Squad leaders can also move other units forward with them once per turn - very useful for moving slower units longer distances using a scout leader. There's also more choices in terms of the secondary tank since it can be either an APC for carrying units or a lighter regular tank.

I mentioned earlier that there's very few normal, predictable missions in comparison to 1. Most have a change in objective midway through, often accompanied by enemy reinforcements. There's environmental hazards as well as occasionally parts of the map that can be destroyed. Overall I found the game's difficulty to be spot on - this is the kind of game where a majority of the difficulty comes from going in blind and thus not knowing what to expect, but even if you're familiar with the maps, they offer a lot of ways to micromanage for optimal play by minimizing turns and maximizing loot from unique enemies. I can think of one boss fight I wasn't a huge fan of, against the Valkyria - she's depicted as incredibly dangerous and can indeed nuke most of your units in one hit, and this particular map is huge with the boss in the middle and the only way in is through the back past lots of enemies. You need to disable her staff by shooting it and then get close enough to deal damage to her - the "cheese"s trat for this is to buff one scout and shocktrooper with orders to enable them to make it pass all the enemies alive which is easier said than done, and then play darts with the boss' hitbox since you need to hit her head with coop attacks while it moves up and down as she's breathing heavily. I want to see someone figure out this mission without a guide. It doesn't even tell you about the staff until after the first round when she has likely nuked most soldiers you left at the starting camp.

Storywise this game is considerably longer and has more subplots than 1 did, owing to the fact that it is a good 10-15 hours longer. 1 told a fairly straightforward story focusing on the squad that won the war. There was loss involved but the horrors of war were depicted closer to what a PG-13 war movie might depict them, and the allies were depicted as unanimously good while the empire was bad, though with a relatable baddie or two. 4 really turns this on its head as the game gets into the second half and it becomes much more grey as the allies' war secrets are revealed. Likewise, there's a lot more death involved beyond just nameless baddies, and the effect those have on the squad as the war goes on is depicted really well towards the end as everyone starts cracking. I also really liked the story arc of Walz and Crymaria.

My only gripes are pretty minor, I wish the menus were fasters and the soundtrack was more varied. I am almost certain they reused some music from 1 and missions only have the regular battle theme, boss theme and final boss themes.

 

[Sigourn]

One great feature of RetroArch is that it records the amount of time you play your games for. I had 4 hours into Dragon Quest II before I called quits. My story is as follows:

From the get go, I see major improvements compared to Dragon Quest. The first is the more cinematic introduction, complete with narration. The second is the removal of unnecessary menu commands. You still need to resort to other commands, but given I've come from Dragon Quest V, and especifically refused to use the "all in one" button, I was used to this. The third has to do with the combat: now you face multiple enemies, and can find party members of your own. Onto the graphical side, dungeons no longer resemble bricked corridors, and caves now genuinely look like caves. And the music and graphics are as charming as ever.

This is everything good I had seen in these 4 hours. Then the problems began: for everything good I have to say about the gameplay, I have even worse things to mention:

• Combat is now party-based. But at the expense of making two of your characters absolute crap compared to your damage-dealing hero.
• You recruit your party members. But they enter your party at level 1. Getting them up to speed is somewhat enjoyable as you see them earn new abilities; them dying on account of how weak they are isn't.
  
• There's more grinding than in Dragon Quest V, but it's nothing compared to Dragon Quest. You can move around the overworld at a somewhat steady pace. But when you are fully able to explore the world once you gain a ship, everything goes to hell as you no longer have ACTUAL directions on where you should go and what you should do. Enemies can curbstomp you if you tread on the wrong patch of grass. And this is a big world, much bigger than that of Dragon Quest, with a lot of ocean to sail through.

I admit that I didn't quit because of what I was going through, but because of what I heard was coming. I've played Dragon Quest, and I have endured hours upon hours of grinding only to give up at the idea of grinding even more to beat the game. And it appears Dragon Quest II isn't any different. It's a shame because the first three hours paint a whole different picture than this last hour of gameplay did. Onto Dragon Quest III it is, then.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

i played dragon quest 3 snes,good game ! but very boring and grindy end-game,you need to do some mmorpg levels of grinding in order to beat Baramos and Zoma,i did beat baramos but the grinding bored me,so i give up after that.

positives and negatives:

+Party Creation
+Excellent graphics and Art-style,one of the best jrpg's visuals on Snes
+Great world building
+Amazing soundtrack
+Replayability
+Non-linear
+Feels like a JRPG Might and Magic

-Grindy End-game
-Very Hard to beat without a guide
-Lack of Boss fights,there's only 5 bosses.

The graphical difference between Dragon Quest 3 and 5 is huge ! DQ5 looks like a NES game while DQ3 looks almost as good as a PS1 game.

 

[Sigourn]

FINAL FANTASY (NES)

I'm replaying this with the Final Fantasy Restored and Final Fantasy Font Options (FFIV font) patches. In addition, I've installed the following Final Fantasy Restored optionals:

• Boss HP - Double
• Menu Color - Standard Blue
• New Music Off
• RNG - Improved

This makes the game far more polished, with no bugs, no unnecessary new additions (music), with a touch of mainstream Final Fantasy (blue menu), and with stronger bosses. And the Final Fantasy IV font looks great compared to the standard font included in Final Fantasy Restored, but you could also install the vanilla US font. The lack of bugs is a major improvement to a game where many bugs turned mechanics, skills, and weapons completely useless. I recommend Final Fantasy Restored for this reason alone.

There are arguably two unnecessary changes that don't fit into the whole "bugfixing" schtick:

1. The removal of the Peninsula of Power, an excellent place to level grind early in the game.
2. The removal of Mythril Swords in Elfheim's weapon shop, in favor of Longswords.

While the latter has become the norm in future remakes of the game, the former hasn't. A patch exists that rectifies both of these problems, Final Fantasy Restored Debalance, but it doesn't let you choose between one or the other.

All that said, the game is far more enjoyable than it was in my previous playthrough, probably because I also have my battle speed set at 6 and it makes encounters considerably faster than when I last played, where the default battle speed made the game far too slow.

 

[Deflowerer]

Should try some difficulty hacks.

 

[cosmicray]

Finally decided to play The Last Remnant. Beginning is quite enjoyable as it gives you a taste of battle system from the get-go. It's also not a slow start by any means, even less so by jRPGs standards. I thought I'd gonna watch long cutscenes and various fetch quests before doing something interesting, but aside from starting cutscenes it has a good pace and battle-oriented gameplay. I'm finally off the chains of first missions to make my own squads, so I'm interested how it goes.